"You're forgetting who stomped ass last time," Hammet replied smugly.

The two were exchanging alarmingly militant looks when another child came to the doorway, a finger in her mouth. "Baby's a-cryin' again," she lisped through the unappetizing finger.

"Git inside," Bubba snapped.

I realized that we needed a social worker, a referee, or perhaps a few National Guardsmen with great big guns. I would have settled for Mrs. Jim Bob with a Bible. One lone (expletives deleted) chief of police was going to have a potentially volatile situation on her hands, as we say in official jargon, if she tried to force any of the Buchanon offspring into leaving. I considered a plea for reason. I considered a passionate appeal to whatever intelligence Bubba possessed. Once I recovered from that momentary flight of fancy, I went back to the jeep and sat down on the fender.

"There's a lot of food in town," I said.

"Yeah," Hammet said, nodding. "Cheeseburgers and sweet milk and corn chips. All you wants, and you don't have to give 'em money or root through no garbage cans." He shot me a quick look. "You don't hafta take a bath, neither."

"I'm awful hungry," Sukie said through her finger.

Sissie looked up at Bubba. "Baby's doin' poorly. Iffen he dies, Mama'll be madder than a brooder hen tryin' to hatch a rock. And I'm awful hungry, too."

"But we cain't just go off with some cop lady."

Sensing Bubba's indecision, I moved in for the kill. "How about apple pie, kids? Does everybody like apple pie with ice cream? Soda pop? Okra and collard greens oozing in pot likker? Pork chops with red-eye gravy? Mashed potatoes? Soft white bread? I know just where we can get plates piled high with all that-and no baths." Okay, I lied.

Pretty soon we were all in the jeep, bouncing back down the mountainside. Sukie was squashed next to Hammet in the front seat, listening blankly as he explained how Mr. Macaroni invented the radio before anyone else even owned a radio, which was a goddamn noble thing for Mr. Macaroni to have done in the first place.

The two older children sat in the backseat. The baby, wrapped in a piece of quilt and disturbingly quiet, lay in Sissie's lap. I was occupied with trying to figure out how to deal with Ruby Bee when I strolled in with my bevy of Buchanon bush colts and ordered two gallons of collard greens. I suspected it wasn't going to play well.

Mrs. Jim Bob's knees were getting sore, but she kept her lips tight and her head bent to a pious tilt, trying not to ponder the heretical idea that Brother Verber was a mite long-winded. Especially when she had things to discuss. She couldn't help but notice the floor of the church was dusty, which went to prove she'd been right all along when she said Perkins' eldest was doing a poor job of cleaning. She stole a quick peek at the windows above the choir loft, then hastily closed her eyes. Yes, they were streaky, just as she'd imagined they would be. And Perkins' eldest carrying on about how she always used ammonia when she wiped the windows. Everybody knew ammonia didn't streak.

"Amen," Brother Verber said in a deep, melodious flow of vowels and consonants, clinging to the final sound until it tickled his nose. He just loved it when his nose tickled, even if it meant a sneeze was coming.

"Amen." Mrs. Jim Bob stood up and brushed off her dusty knees. "I appreciate you taking the time to pray with me, Brother Verber, and it did warm my heart. Now I'm hoping you can offer some counsel about a difficult problem."

"You know better than anybody that that's why I'm here, Sister Barbara. What sort of problem do you want to discuss?"

"It concerns something that has arisen between Mr. Jim Bob and me."

"Problems of an intimate marital nature?" Brother Verber said, striving for the proper balance of sympathy and distaste. Sometimes, he knew, he sounded too enthusiastic when asked to counsel his flock about what all they did in the privacy of their bedrooms. And the stories he heard were enough to make a grown man blush. It was hard to imagine some of the lurid, disgusting, filthy animal practices he'd heard about over the years. In fact, only last week he'd been obliged to order some magazines (to be delivered in plain brown wrappers) so he could study the photographs and be more understanding of his flock's depravities. His old magazines were falling apart from all the studying he'd done.

Mrs. Jim Bob sat down on a pew and took out a tissue to wipe her forehead. "Brother Verber, you know I would never permit Jim Bob to even hint at anything unnatural or contrary to my Christian upbringing. When I agree to fulfill my marital obligations, we do it precisely like the Good Book says we should, and we don't dillydally about it, either. I wouldn't consider some unspeakable atheistic variation."

"Of course you wouldn't," Brother Verber said, swallowing his disappointment. He plopped down next to her and patted her knee with a pudgy hand. "Now, you take all the time you need to mull over this problem, then just let it come right out. I'll sit here quietly and wait." He patted her knee some more in order to encourage her to mull.

"I have had a disagreement with my husband, long distance since he's still at that municipal league meeting all the way down in Hot Springs. I told him about something I intend to do. He ordered me not to do it. I told him that it was the morally correct thing to do. He raised his voice, Brother Verber. He went so far as to yell at me over the telephone. All the operators in Hot Springs probably heard him." She took a swipe at her eyes with the tissue, then tucked it in her cuff.

"What is this thing you intend to do?" Brother Verber asked. He patted her knee a little bit higher to show his support in case she changed her mind and wanted to talk about a delicate sexual matter. "I know in my heart that anything you want to do will sit right pretty in the eyes of the Lord. Surely your husband knows that, too. But you're going have to tell me all about it, so's I can make an informed counsel of the matter."

"That is not the point," she said as she inched down the pew. "The point is that I intend to disobey my husband for the first time in thirty years of marriage. I took a solemn vow to love, honor, and obey him. The very thought of disobeying him rips my soul, Brother Verber. Rips it like it was wet tissue paper."

Brother Verber did some inching so he could pat her knee to show his soul was ripping as fast and furious as hers. "I see you have a very complicated problem. You did the right thing to bring it to me. But I still don't know what you're talking about, so you'd better just spit it out, Sister Barbara."

Sister Barbara inched for a few seconds, then said, "I am going to take some poor, starving, motherless orphans into my home. I am going to feed them, bathe them, and instill Christian morals and values in them. I am going to see they receive an education so they can make something of themselves in the future. And I'm going to wash their mouths out with soap until they learn to speak in a civilized fashion!"

"I think that sounds beautiful, Sister Barbara. More than beautiful. I think that sounds downright saintly." He inched down the pew so he could pat her saintly knee. "Why would Jim Bob object to something so charitable?"

"I am speaking of Robin Buchanon's bastards."

Brother Verber's hand halted in mid-pat. His florid face turned even redder, and the pores seemed to widen on his nose until they resembled lunar craters. "Say what?"

"Robin Buchanon's children. It seems the disgusting slut has disappeared in a totally irresponsible way. They have been alone in that primitive shack for the best part of a week, with no food or moral guidance. I almost cry every time I think of those poor, abandoned, dirty, starving bastards."